Carrier IQ Now the Subject of a Federal Investigation

According to a report out of The Washington Post, a federal probe has been launched to investigate the work of Carrier IQ, its software, and how it handles the data it collects. Executive from Carrier IQ have met with both the FTC and FCC, stating through representative Mira Woods, “we are complying with all investigations at this time as we have nothing to hide.”

The investigation comes after several government officials, including Senator Al Franken, urged for a closer examination of Carrier IQ’s practices. Woods said that the analytics company has been “completely transparent” during the process. With allegations of FBI involvement, class-action lawsuits, and carriers and smartphone manufacturers taking their own stances for and against Carrier IQ, we expect it will take some time to uncover the truth.

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I hope this investigation includes the carriers that actually have access to the data.

ScottColbert

Agreed, getting pissed off at CIQ for making the software is like blaming gun manufacturers for someone being shot.

Darian Lewis

That’s nonsense. They were harvesting for a reason. They need to say what that was and to turn over the data they collected. This is not someone being shot and the gun analogy makes no sense in this context. A closer one is someone being surreptitiously followed without their knowledge and who knows what data collected about them and stored or sold to others.

In the end, CIQ of their own accord or because someone paid them to, broke some laws and spied on US citizens for no valid legal reason. They didn’t make a tool to do it and hand it over, they alone are culpable for what they made and did. That’s a good reason for being pissed at them – especially if you’re one of the people that was being spied on.

I agree with Casey Bodley, everyone who bought the stolen and virus-like program output ALSO needs to be investigated and their use of illegally obtained information thoroughly examined.

DannyB2

Someone might say that what CIQ did broke no laws. To those I would say: if they broke no laws, then why are they hiding, attempting censorship and otherwise acting like they did something wrong?

http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk

yep, because it may be the fact that all that extra data never gets transmitted and is simply filtered out, but in reality it shouldn’t be tracked at all. Info needed to debug is one thing, but all that plain text and url is just not needed.

Maximillion82

Wow isn’t that a big surprise. Well the good news is that BitDefender finds it. I my recommendation to every Smartphone buyer is to check in the store if this crap is installed, and if it is, switch CARRIER, since the carriers put it on not the phone manufacturers nor Google.

http://twitter.com/genetic_bloom genetic_bloom

Switch to what? Almost all carriers use it. Just buy a phone that doesn’t have it, like a Nexus; you can get one on every major carrier.

miso_sori

Or even better get whatever phone on whatever carrier and put a custom rom on it. Problem solved.

Alexander Ramirez

“we have nothing to hide” now that our hidden app has been discovered.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Myers/1367589646 Scott Myers

Go senator Stuart Smalley! When it comes to putting the screws to shady business practices he’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and gosh darn it… people like him.

KOLIO

Thank you,SEN. Al Franken.

ffolkes

Despite the rumors and assumptions being made against CIQ, one thing remains true – they took a heavy-handed, bullying approach to addressing the concerns TrevE raised rather than being civil, and now they are paying for it dearly.